Monday, October 6, 2014

Wild Weather Swings

Above combination-image illustrates some of the wild temperature swings that are taking place on the Northern Hemisphere. While the average temperature anomaly on the Northern Hemisphere may not differ much between the two dates (+0.95°C versus +1.07°C), huge temperature swings can occur locally, as is the case in Greenland.

Note that the overall temperature anomaly for the Arctic is +2.16°C and +3.34°C, respectively, but it can be much more locally. What contributes to these high temperatures in the Arctic is that heat from the Arctic Ocean is entering the atmosphere where there still is open water, while large emissions of methane from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean are exercizing their high immediate local warming potential.

On the Southern Hemisphere, things aren't much different, as illustrated by the combination-image below.

The two images show that, while the average anomaly for the Southern Hemisphere and for the Antarctic may not differ much between the two dates, temperature anomalies locally may go from one end of the scale to the other.

And it's not merely temperatures that seem to have gone wild. Winds have strengthened, which can push sea ice far out into the sea surrounding Antarctica, while the resulting open water quickly freezes over. The result is expanding sea ice that traps heat in the ocean, as discussed in an earlier post. It appears that much of the extra energy trapped by greenhouse gasses becomes manifest as kinetic energy, in the form of stronger winds, storms and ocean currents.

In conclusion, these huge temperature swings combine with pressure swings and storms, and with swings between expansion and contraction of soil and ice, resulting in severe shocks to ecosystems and infrastructure.

The threat is that infrastructure will increasingly come under stress. Infrastructure that was built up over hundreds, if not thousands of years, is not easily replaced with more durable alternatives. Parts of infrastructure such as roads, buildings, railways, storm water and drainage systems, water supply, dams, levees and power poles may collapse without much scope for repair.

Furthermore, soil degradation will increase, as in some areas storms grow stronger and run-off causes more erosion, while other areas may be hit by more severe droughts and dust-storms. In both cases, ecosystems will suffer and can go into shock, bringing food supply and habitat progressively and possibly abruptly under threat.

As more and deeper cracks and fractures appear in sediments and soils, more methane may start entering the atmosphere. Indications that the integrity of the permafrost is breaking up under the stress of such swings were discussed in earlier posts such as this one and this one. The extra methane can constitute a powerful additional feedback loop, causing strong additional warming locally.

The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as discussed at the Climate Plan blog.

5 comments:

The statistics on temparature anomlay on the bottom margin do not jibe.The second group of pictures (southern hemisphere) shows left at 18:00 UTC, but right it is Sun 12 Oct 2014 0600 UTC, just as the second picture does. One would exect the world anomalies to be same for the same point in time, regardless of whether one is showing the northern or the southern hemipshere.

One of the forecasts was run on October 5 and the other one on October 6. The difference in the forecast for the Antarctic temperature illustrates the very point made in the post, i.e. that anomalies in specific areas can go from one end of the scale to the other in a matter of days. While such rapid and dramatic changes can be masked by averaging, in this case they did change the overall forecast for the Antarctic by 0.9°C in a single day.

The time stamp for October 5 UTC 00:00 and October 6 UTC 18:00 explains differences in average temperatures, but for the two stamped October 12 UTC 06:00 (northern/southern hemisphere) one would expect the same anomalies. I was assuming that there was perhaps a small error with the datetime stamp or something of that nature, or else there is something very fundamental beyond my understanding.

Correlation of location of the Enrico high pressure mantel methane reservoir location and where the Gakkel ridge hits into the slope to the Laptev Sea seems to consistently hold temperature of sky and ocean surface anomalously high..I think it is unethical for methane levels in the sky not to be made public and easily trackable by world citizens. Because without public sentiment in favor of doing something about CH4 forcing -World Ends.Not one person is saying temperature is going to relax its increase so that methane Clathrate ice remains.. The world of money and power externalized Earth and Nature to the point of Open Systems failure..

VideoBar

Global temperatures are rising fast. In the Arctic, temperatures are rising even faster (interactive charts below and right). For 2010 and 2011, NASA recorded anomalies of over 2°C at higher latitudes (64N to 90N), with anomalies of over 3°C at latitudes 79N and 81N in 2010.

For November 2010, anomalies of 12.5°C were recorded at latitude 71N, longitude -79 (Baffin Island, Canada). At specific moments in time and at specific locations, anomalies can be even more striking. As an example, on January 6, 2011, temperature in Coral Harbour, located at the northwest corner of Hudson Bay in the province of Nunavut, Canada, was 30°C (54°F) above average.